
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, August 12, 1994                   TAG: 9408120092
SECTION: NATL/INTL                    PAGE: A4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: KNOXVILLE, TENN.                                 LENGTH: Short

STUDY: TREES DYING 3 TIMES NATURAL RATE

Trees in the biggest forest in the Eastern United States appear to be dying at three times the natural rate, probably because of pollution, studies show.

The largest and most majestic trees in the forest, some of them more than 300 years old, are being hit the hardest, said Orie L. Loucks, an ecosystem scientist at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.

Loucks is studying what's called the mixed mesophytic forest, which stretches from Ohio through West Virginia and Kentucky and into Tennessee.

He presented the findings at the annual meeting of the Ecological Society of America and the American Institute of Biological Sciences.

- Associated Press

by CNB